Practical writing on Java, Spring, AI, and the craft of software engineering.
If you're building with Java and Spring (or trying to figure out where AI fits into your development workflow) you're in the right place. I write practical, beginner-friendly deep dives on Spring Boot, Spring AI, and software engineering fundamentals, collected here in chronological order.
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The 5 Steps of AI Adoption: Which One Are You On?
Learn the 5 steps of AI adoption mapped out by Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code, and how to move from copy-pasting code to supervised autonomy.
Can You Trust AI-Generated Code?
Can you trust AI-generated code? It depends on what you already know. A look at why AI code feels great in unfamiliar stacks and how to verify it.
Spring AI: Build Real Guardrails that hold
Learn how to build Spring AI guardrails with SafeGuardAdvisor, custom PII masking, and output rails to stop prompt injection and data leaks.
Spring AI 2.0 Tool Calling: Build a Live Claude-Style UI
Build a Claude-style 'Calling tool...' UI with Spring AI 2.0's ToolCallingAdvisor. Stream live tool call events over SSE from the ChatClient advisor chain.
Self-Correcting Structured Output in Spring AI 2.0
Learn how Spring AI 2.0 validates LLM JSON against your schema and automatically retries failures with self-correcting structured output. A beginner guide.
Spring Boot End of Life: Every 3.x Branch Is Now Unsupported
Spring Boot 3.5 reached end of life in June 2026 and every 3.x branch is now unsupported. What that means, and how to plan your Spring Boot 4 upgrade.
How to Kill a Process Running on a Port (Windows, macOS & Linux)
Port 8080 already in use? Learn how to find and kill the process running on a port on Windows, macOS, and Linux—with copy-paste commands for each.
Spring AI Tool Search: Stop Wasting Tokens on Tools You Don't Need
Spring AI 2.0's tool search brings dynamic tool discovery to Spring Boot—load tools on demand instead of into every request to cut token usage and cost.
Building Custom Spring AI Advisors for Tool Logging and Token Tracking
Learn to build custom Spring AI advisors with the BaseAdvisor interface to log available tools, track tool invocations, and count token usage on every LLM call.
ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Actually Use?
Spring AI gives you two ways to call an LLM. Learn the difference between ChatClient and ChatModel, when to use each, and see both in action with code examples.